This week involved a flurry of media activity for Professor Laurie Shanks, including interviews for public radio in Los Angeles, Newsweek's The Daily Beast, and a forthcoming article for New York Times Magazine.

On April 30, 2013, Professor Shanks was a guest on AirTalk, a Southern California Public Radio program, to discuss the Orange County District Attorney's recently announced plan to publicize the names of individuals who are convicted of soliciting prostitutes.

She continued, "You're really punishing the family members, you're really imposing a penalty that wasn't contemplated. What the prosecutor is saying in this case is, 'Well I'd like to add some penalties, and what I'd like to add is humiliation, what I'd like to add is the public thinking badly of this person, what I'd like to do is let his wife know,' and that's just not appropriate in my mind."

Professor Shanks was also interviewed on this topic for a forthcoming story in New York Times Magazine.

That same day, Professor Shanks did an interview for popular news website The Daily Beast on Judy Clarke, the defense attorney appointed to defend the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing case.

In that interview, Professor Shanks said “In addition to being a brilliant lawyer in terms of knowing the law and persuading a jury, perhaps her most impressive quality is her ability to connect and understand individuals that the rest of the world despises. She is really able not only to gain their trust but to make their actions understandable to others.”

A frequent resource for journalists on a variety of legal issues, Professor Shanks teaches Client Interviewing and Counseling, Negotiating for Lawyers, Trial Practice I: Criminal Pretrial Skills, and Trial Practice II: Criminal Trial Skills. She also serves on Judge Kaye's task force on wrongful convictions and the state bar's committee on the future of indigent defense, as well as a referee for the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Professor Shanks joined the Albany Law School faculty in 1989 after private practice in Phoenix, Ariz., where she focused on criminal defense and personal injury litigation. While in Arizona, she was also the training director for the Maricopa County Public Defenders Office and served as a judge pro tem.